How Disney and Threadless Built a 200K-Person Design Team

One of 487 submissions in the Threadless/Disney design contest, the winning submission, shown here, earned its designer $2,500 and some serious bragging rights.

Designs in these competitions cover a considerable range of design styles from impressionistic interpretations to hard, flat, colorful representations.

Opening up valuable media properties to crowds can be dangerous; this design references posters that came out of the drug-fueled psychedelic scene of the 1960s, but more overt references to substance abuse, sex, and other adult matters are strictly prohibited.

Disney and Threadless have figured out how to unlock the potential of a global creative team, creating value for all of the stakeholders.

Subtlety is a common theme among designs that win these competitions. None of the marquee characters are present in this design, but fans would immediately recognize the reference.

While some designs push the envelope of content or style, others are just well executed interpretations of the characters that could have easily originated in Disney's famed "Imagineering" labs.

Monsters Inc is the latest Disney title to get a Threadless contest, but they've previously sponsored design competitions for Iron Man, Muppets, and others, birthing new t-shirt designs like this expressionistic watercolor, an homage to Iron Man that would almost certainly be rejected at a Disney design review.

Iron Man meets Low Rider — another design that would be unlikely to come from Disney's officially sanctioned design team.

Designers love creating homages to their favorite Disney characters (e.g., turning the iconic princesses into zombies and hipsters), but if they ever tried to sell those designs they would be faced with a foe scarier than Cruella de Vil — Disney’s legal department.

The crowdsourced T-shirt manufacturer Threadless is trying to help both parties by hosting a series of contests that allows their army of 220,000 talented community members to create shirt designs using Disney’s treasure trove of IP, but get formal recognition and cash for their efforts.

Threadless started sponsoring these competitions just three years ago and have since held contests for Disney brands like Iron Man and The Muppets as well as non-Disney characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Monsters U., Pixar’s newest release, is the latest project to get this treatment, and the winners of the competition were announced last week. The competition yielded 487 designs that earned 247,730 votes, leading to 16 Monsters U. t-shirt designs in production (to go with 40 Threadless Iron Man contest design shirts, among others).

It’s a win-win scenario. Media brands get access to an outsourced creative department of almost a quarter million artists spread over the globe, as well as exposure to the Threadless community, who provide feedback and a sense of what’s hip. Artists get to combine their love of superheroes and Jackson Pollock and get paid for it. Over the last 13 years, Threadless has paid out $7,120,000 to their community of designers, though the grand prize winner of this competition only pocketed $2,500.

These competitions also help make Disney’s characters, usually reserved for the preschool set, relevant with young urbanites who have a touch of nostalgia and plenty of disposable income. “Adult male products sell best on Threadless, but a lot of the licensed product makes a strong showing in the toddler and baby categories as well,” says Wilson Fong, the Vice President of Partnerships/Business Development at Threadless. “Design submissions can be cute, funny, ironic, edgy, beautiful, intricate, simplistic, or anything in between, so there’s something for every fan of a given property.”

Despite the positives, there is a delicate balance to be struck. Disney has become synonymous with family friendly entertainment, but Threadless is known to produce shirts featuring fornicating unicorns and a surprising amount of zombies. “Brands evolve and weave in and out of trends,” Says Fong. “By connecting to Threadless’s massive global artist community, Disney can encourage artists to come up with creative interpretations of beloved characters that are culturally relevant, fresh, and never before thought of.” says Fong. To keep things from getting out of hand, editorial discretion is applied — this Monsters U. inspired design is a clear reference to psychedelic poster art from the 60’s, but a more overt drug reference would be banned.

In addition to accessing new design talent, crowdsourcing is also an emerging marketing channel. Instead of relying on a highly centralized team of “Imagineers” and marketers, Disney ends up getting a legion of designers to spread their designs through social media profiles and through the Threadless network. “When our designers post a design on their social pages asking followers to vote, it builds amazing organic connections with partner brands,” says Fong.

So far these designs have only been sold on Threadless.com, but Fong is excited about seeing the designs at traditional retailers, and with a little luck, maybe the next winner’s design will win a trip to DisneyWorld.